halfway happy

I had this kind of epistolary Byler AU idea where Mike is a Substack writer who writes under a pen name paladin_pens and no one knows his true identity.

He actually has quite an audience and a lot of people that connect to his experiences.

Will is Mike’s best friend and an avid reader of a certain Substack newsletter, whose author writes about everyday struggles in your 20s, struggling with his sexuality and chasing your dreams that seem completely unachievable right now.

Of course Will doesn’t know it’s Mike who’s behind the newsletter.

One day, Mike writes an essay called simply

“Don’t Fall In Love with Your Best Friend”

where he writes about how his feelings for his best friend have changed over the years of their friendship and why you shouldn’t fall in love with your best friend.

Will, who’s been in love with Mike for years now, relates to the essay so much he decides to message the author.

They start exchanging e-mails.

While the online them start growing closer with, the real life friendship starts to slowly fall apart.

And it’s all because, while exchanging emails, they both agreed they should distance themselves from their best friend in order to fall out of love with them.

—

I don’t know how offensive what I’m about to say is, but I genuinely don’t understand how people are able to write so much in a short period of time. I recently made a post where I was talking about how every byler fic now has chapters and word counts that are SO long but written within the span of a month. I chalked it up to just very passionate people, but with the recent super soaker drama on twitter, I can’t help but be suspicious of all the fanfic I read and if it’s AI or not.

Obviously, people can pre-write. I know many do this — I did the first three chapters of my fanfic. But the sheer amount of fanfics that I see written and finished within a month and are over a 100K words is so crazy to me!! I’ve been in fandom long enough to know that something like that isn’t normal. Even in 2020 when people had so much time to write, fics didn’t get this long this fast. And idk maybe people can genuinely just write that quickly, I don’t want to accuse writers of anything, but it’s also okay to take your time with this.

It’s okay to sit with your characters, to take time to think about their characterization, to make playlists and Pinterest boards and ten thousand planning documents. And I know that sometimes it can be annoying to just write, especially when you know every single thing that’s going to happen in your fic (like I do). But that’s part of the writing process! There’s so many moments where I just cannot write because I don’t know what a character would do or react in a situation, but being able to sit with it and take time with writing makes you so much of a better writer with new ideas.

this and also the only difference between fanfic writers and writers who sell their own original works as careers is that fanfics aren’t monetized. that’s all.

being a “professional” writer doesn’t mean your works are inherently better than fanfics. I’ve read so many fics that are more professionally written than some published books.

he’s extremely introverted, barely leaves the property unless absolutely necessary, writes novels for a living, and genuinely likes being alone.

then jonathan (his coworker and also nancy’s boyfriend) asks him for a favor.

will has just gotten out of a six-year relationship and is not handling it well. he moved out of the apartment he shared with his ex, put most of his life into storage, and has been crashing with jonathan and nancy while trying to figure out what comes next. except the longer it goes on, the worse he’s doing

so jonathan asks mike if will can stay with him for a while.

just somewhere quiet.

somewhere away from the city.

somewhere he can breathe.

mike agrees because it’s temporary.

will agrees because he doesn’t really have a better plan.

except mike quickly discovers that “quietly sharing a house” becomes much harder when your guest is friendly, outgoing, talks to strangers, adopts your dogs within forty-eight hours, and somehow manages to fill every room with life.

and will discovers that the grumpy recluse living in the woods is actually kind, thoughtful, secretly funny, and writes the sort of stories that make him want to pick up a paintbrush again.

—

"and love is love, is love, is love, is love, is love, is love, is love, is love

cannot be killed or swept aside

(…)

now fill the world with music, love and pride"

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

FREE LOVE!!!!!! QUEER LOVE!!!!